As any economist would tell you, any nationwide financial crisis will probably be accompanied by a rise in unemployment levels, and he would not have to think far back to offer an example. Although today’s financial crisis may not be close to ending, new evidence shows that unemployment may finally be shrinking rather than growing.

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According to figures released by the Labor Department, the number of unemployment insurance applications has fallen by 4,000 to 621,000 from last week to this week. These numbers correlate with Labor Department predictions. Also, the Labor Department has also noticed a rise in worker productivity, a larger increase than expected.

Analysts seem to agree that increased worker efficiency will lead to higher profits and, consequently, fewer job cuts. These reports show that companies are cutting jobs faster than necessary to get the economy back on track and that unemployment numbers should decrease as the effects of the job cuts finally start to show.

Graeme Neill, who blogs for UK-based theBookseller.com has a post today called: Author Sinha in hunger strike

The story is about Idera Sinha, author of novels the Animal’s People and The Death of Mr.Love, who began a hunger strike on 10th June in an attempt to bring American industrial company Dow Chemical to court in India to face criminal and civil charges relating to the tragedy because of a major chemical spill by that company in Bhopal, India back in 1984.

Arghhh… I’d forgotten all about the spill caused by an American company and might have assumed, if asked, that somehow the victims had been compensated and the mess cleaned up. But no… not much has been done. And tragically I’m not surprised, really.

Our country’s massive greediness is, in my opinion, appalling. Of course, we also do a whole bunch of wonderful stuff. Sigh.

When I first saw the headline, however, I wondered what, if anything I’d go on a hunger strike for?

How about you? What might move you to perform a hunger strike?

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